[R-sig-Geo] Alternative to bivariate interpolation from akima-package

[Roger Bivand]

I've suggested this as a project for GSoC 2013:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/gsoc-r/8ZUQCVlyodk

If you know of capable students, please recommend this to them. It's best 
to coordinate efforts, I think.

Roger

On Thu, 14 Mar 2013, Jon Olav Skoien wrote:

> Dear list,
>
> A function in the intamap package currently uses the bivariate interpolation 
> method for irregularly spaced data from the akima package. This dependency is 
> a problem because of license mismatch (intamap is GPL >=2, akima has an 
> exclusively non-commercial license). Does anyone know about a good 
> alternative to this method?
> The method must be able to interpolate from an irregularly spaced observation 
> network to a grid, and the interpolated surface must be smooth, i.e., 
> differentiable. The method should ideally be fast also for larger data sets. 
> The thin plate splines regression in the fields package (Tps) seems to 
> produce a smooth surface, but struggles with memory consumption when the 
> observation network is large (>2000 points).
> mba.surf in the MBA package is very fast, but it could run into problems with 
> heterogeneous sampling patterns.
>
> Any other suggestions? Is there a natural neighbor interpolation method 
> implemented in R?
>
> Best wishes,
> Jon
>
>
>
>

-- 
Roger Bivand
Department of Economics, NHH Norwegian School of Economics,
Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway.
voice: +47 55 95 93 55; fax +47 55 95 95 43
e-mail: Roger.Bivand at nhh.no